Ohio Trip

 

So, it was brought to my attention that I never blogged about the trip when Meredith and myself went to Ohio.  So, here goes....

So, we left for Ohio in the morning, arrived at the Ritterspach ranch after 4ish, local time.  Met Jim and Amanda, got to peek into the breeding barn, got to see some of the chins they had for sale, and of course, get some to take home.  Also got to see some of the royal persian angora chins, as well as a locken (curly) chin.  Jim showed Meredith some nice standard females and she decided on a darker standard female out of the ones he had.  Then we went hunting for my herd improvement male.  I imagine there would have been more "choosing" involved, only by the time we got to the second chin, Amanda was saying, "I can't believe you're going to sell that one."  That pretty much sold the chin right there.  Turns out, while this male was smaller than I would have liked, he was very blue, which is harder to come by.  As Jim explained it, it's hard to get the genes for size and the genes for blue in the same animal, so it'd be better to have a smaller, blue animal, than a larger, not clear animal.  Alrighty.  And when the male was held up side by side with another animal, it was easier to see how he was more blue.  So, that settled me on him. 

So, then we went outside, got to play with their dogs (they breed miniature australian shepherds, though Jim used to breed rotties), chatted some more.  Had clarity explained better to me, and got questions answered, and it was great.  Learned lots of new things.  We must have been there a good four hours or so, but we had to leave because we were staying at a little motel-like-place, and we wanted to make sure we'd get in before they'd close the office and then we wouldn't be able to get in.  So that was the end of day 1.  And some pictures:

Royal Persian Angora Chinchilla

Locken (curly-coated) chinchilla

Jim & Amanda and the chins we picked out (Meredith's on the left, mine on the right)

Pandora, Meredith's female Ritterspach chin

Ace, my male Ritterspach chin

Amanda & Jim Ritterspach and me

Amanda and Jim Ritterspach and Meredith

 So, we got up in the morning, to a phone call from Hummel that he had to be out in the fields today, so our visit there would have to be rescheduled.  So we drove over to the Ryersons.  Hummel had called them as well, so that if we hadn't gotten the message they left, the Ryersons could have told us that it wasn't a good day for us to stop by the Hummel ranch.  We thought that was nice of them to do and to make sure we got the message.

So, we actually were going to Ryersons as the main reason for the trip, as we were picking up holding cages.  So we got those loaded in the blazer, and then, since I'd never seen the ranch, I asked if we could see the chins and such.  So, Rich and Jan showed us their breeding chins, answered our questions, explained how their watering system worked (which was super helpful, as I am going to set one up someday), and were super helpful.  They explained the use of dyne for chinchillas, and gave Meredith a bottle for use with it.  Somehow, the story of my Hendryx chin dismantling a 3 prong collar before I could get it on her came up, and Rich rivited together a three prong and gave it to me (super helpful).  So then once we were done there, we thanked them and left for home.  

Some pictures:

...and I think *I* have a lot of dust.  Those are all 50 pound bags of Blue Cloud.

the Ryersons' license plate

holding cages at Ryersons

a mosaic (white) chin -- see the white on the back legs and tip of tail?  this is not a standard grey

breeding cages at Ryersons

Rich Ryerson and Meredith

Rich Ryerson and me

And then I got a nice snapshot of the Ohio flag while on the Ohio Turnpike (while stopped at a rest stop, not while driving):